Every year for the past half dozen or so, Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas has estimated lost worker productivity from time spent paying attention to the NCAA Tournament – watching games, filling out brackets and trash talking. This year’s figure? $1.7 billion.

But the study, some argue, presumes that office workers spend every moment focusing on work and conversation never strays to current events, American Idol, or surfing YouTube to watch videos. My story today looks at companies that have decided to join the March Madness hoopla and allow bracket pools and in some cases, TVs will be tuned to games. Plenty of workers will be checking out CBSSports.com’s March Madness on Demand streaming video of all the games online.

Is your office joing the fun? Or have pools and game watching been banned?

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Southwest Airlines may no longer be a sponsor of the NFL, but it isn’t out of the football business. The low-cost airline, known for its humorous NFL ads, has signed up to be the official airline of the BCS.

The airline’s new ad campaign is to begin airing in January during the BCS bowl games, starting with the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day and including the FedEx Orange Bowl on Jan. 3. The airline is also sponsoring the Orange Bowl’s halftime show, which is featuring ZZ Top.

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